Sirius Black: Escape from Azkaban
by shadowkat678
Summary: Sirius Black has escaped the inescapable: Azkaban. Now, with Aurors hot on his tail, he has to find the traitor that ruined his life, protect his Godson, and get his revenge all while on the run from the ministry of magic. Now, find out what they didn't tell you in the third book. The good, the bad, and the ugly.


Sirius Black: Escape from Azkaban

By: Shadowkat678

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**Summary: Sirius Black has escaped the inescapable: Azkaban. Now, with Aurors hot on his tail, he has to find the traitor that ruined his life, protect his Godson, and get his revenge all while on the run from the ministry of magic. This is the Story of Sirius Black as it has never been told before. Now, find out what they didn't tell you in the third book: The good, the bad, and the ugly.**

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**_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters you see here unless I put in a minor OC to further the story or is said in an A/N._**

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Chapter one: A dog's day of freedom.

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_Hope...a simple word only four letters long, a word that had been slowly drained out of him for twelve long years..._

_Joy...three small letters he never thought he'd feel again..._

_Freedom...a word, seven letters in length, which would soon change everything..._

A large black hound now stood at the very edge of those three words, its storm gray-eyes staring past the story high rolling waves that buffeted the rocky cliffs of the forbidding island thirty feet below him and out to a paper-thin line of bright sky blue, nothing but a feeble pinprick of promise on the darkening horizon. The faraway color was a stark contrast to the dark gray of the never-ending storm he had known for so long. Needles of frigid rain pounded relentlessly on the dog's tired skeletal frame, his once silky black coat hung ragged and matted, stretched thin over painfully jutting hip bones and ribs.

In reality, this dog wasn't really a dog at all, but the most feared man in the entire wizard prison: The infamous madman and murderer, Sirius Black...and he was innocent, framed by the true killer and thrown in prison without so much as a trial.

A thousand caged emotions raked through his thin body at once engulfing his mind and overwhelming him until the only thing he could think clearly about was swimming, swimming away from Azkaban, swimming towards Harry, his godson, and Remus, his only remaining friend that would ever so much as think to believe his story.

Black shifted his body uneasily. It would be full dark in less than an hour, if they hadn't realized the dingy cell he had slipped out of was empty by now they certainly would soon. He was their favorite prisoner, after all, and it was almost feeding time for Azkaban's guards.

He shivered. Those creatures, they stole every emotion, left a person completely devoid of any feeling, any emotion, leaving their victims as nothing more than an empty shell. Everything but the cold, the emptiness...that was all they ever left you with. Sirius thought he'd never escape from it, never get the chance to feel anything again. The very thought of the cloaked, joy sucking creatures sent the worst of his memories flashing through his mind's eye.

There he was, kneeling in front of the cold body of his best friend, dead in the smoldering wreckage of his home. A pair of once bright hazel eyes were glazed over, gazing dull and unseeing from under cracked glasses and the bangs of his messy black hair. His face was twisted in a silent scream of horror from whatever thing he last saw in the bright green flash of the killing curse. Then he saw Lily, the fiery emerald-eyed red-head everyone had always seemed so drawn to, who Prongs had chased after since third year, who had finally said yes in their seventh. He had been the best man at their wedding, he had seen the way they both looked at each other, and how they smiled. He saw the joy on both their faces when they found out about having Harry, and in one night everything they had was ripped away from them. She didn't deserve to die, neither of them did, and the blame always seemed to lead back to one person...the rat...

Anger welled up inside of him as he unconsciously bared his teeth.

Then, there was his former friend, framing him in front of all London, framing him for the murder of James, his brother by everything but shared blood. He was screaming, screaming lies and yelling that _HE_ was the one who betrayed Lily and James to Voldemort, leaving a one year old Harry orphaned. Then, he watched, as with a twisted smile of triumph, the rat faked his own death, cut off his right index finger, caused an explosion that killed thirteen innocent bystanders, transformed and slipped unseen into the sewer, and added yet another fourteen names to the list of dead Sirius Black supposedly murdered in cold blood.

He closed his eyes and violently shook his head, clearing the images from his mind as a low growl of anger slipped unchecked from his throat. When he reopened them, they were no longer hollow. Pure hate tore through the gray like lightning. Hate for the rat...hate for Peter, the scrawny little boy scared of his own shadow that he, James, and Remus had defended from the other kids all those years at school..._and for this, all for this! To be bloody stabbed in the back by the very person they had taken in!_

His gray eyes narrowed. The traitor would pay, Sirius Black would commit the murder that he had been framed for, and he would enjoy every last sweet second of it as his canines ripped out the rat's lying neck. If the backstabbing traitor wanted people to think Sirius was a murderer, then by Merlin let him be a murderer! Peter Pettigrew would wish the black dog he saw was a grim when Sirius found him.

The shape-shifter shivered, but not from cold. No, even with the chill rain soaking into his matted fur Sirius Black was warmer than he had been in years. It was fear, fear of what lay behind him. His cracked bloody paws shifted nervously on the gritty wet pebbles, sending a few scarlet specked stones falling over the cliff edge into the shifting gray foam below. He looked once more at the massive stone structure looming at his back, even now seeming to vacuum the very life from the air around it, before turning to smell the salty sea breeze ahead of him. He could choose only one. Both choices held danger, but only one held any chance of hope.

He lifted his head and gazed back out to the sea, vast and never-ending, as the convict contemplated the last twelve years of his life on that cold gray rock, thinking of the dementors that hovered silently outside his cell. He hated that place, but there, if nothing else, he was still alive. If he made the jump now though, there was no guarantee it would stay that way. There would be no revenge, no freedom, he would never find his best friends son, never explain his innocence to him, and everything he hoped for would be lost in one swift, deadly, stroke as his bones splintered like toothpicks against the gray rocks of Azkaban's cliffs. The only ones who would ever believe him would never get to hear the truth, and the world would only know him as a madman, a turncoat, a Death Eater, and a murderer. The one thing he wouldn't be known as would be the one thing he was: _Innocent_.

Even death in the cold sea was better than the living death waited for him on the island. A leap of faith was his only option. The word play had no meaning to the dead eyed thirty-three year old...he had decided. Without another second of thought or hesitation he jumped.

The hound free fell through the air before smashing into the icy water with the force of falling bricks. The immense shock of impact rendered him immediately senseless.

As his dark form submerged beneath the swirling dark water of the sea one thing was curtain. Sirius Black, wrongly accused convict and godfather of the Boy-Who-Lived, had escaped the inescapable. One way or another, he was free...

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_Sun... Warmth... Life… Somehow, Sirius Black was alive._

The grim like hound stirred. Slowly, he opened his eyes, feeling soft, wet sand molding to the shape of his thin body underneath him. Water was lapping sluggishly up his hind legs. He was still in dog form.

The dog lifted his head to the bright glare of the midday sun, warming his skin like a hot flame. Oh how he had missed that sun!

Shining gray eyes examined his new surroundings: the white washed sand and crystal clear water that stretched all around him, a thick line of towering green standing sentry in the far distance where the sand melded together with dark dirt and soil. He turned his head back out to sea, ignoring the pounding in his skull, to where a lone dolphin had jumped high above the waves. Free, after all these years...it wasn't a dream, he was really free!

Slowly, he tried to stand, his four feet shaking to the point of buckling under him on the shifting footing. Trembling from snout to tail, he warily took a step forward, his paws sinking slightly in the warm wet sand. Fear and adrenaline coursed through his veins, the feeling of it both enthralling and terrifying at once.

Suddenly he flinched, standing rigid with muscles tensed and hackles raised in a defensive stance, ears pricked, over-alert and anxious at a sudden sound from above. The dog looked up to see gray specked seagulls drifting overhead in the warm ocean breeze, the occasional seabird diving down to catch a fish in its black beak before rising up again into the vast blue backdrop of the sky, the scales of its flailing victim flashing brightly in the light of the afternoon sun.

He barked a laugh. It was strange, so strange, how such a normal sound as seagulls had become so alien to his ears; so strange to hear the sounds of nature, the quiet whistling of the soft sea breeze and the steady lapping of the sparkling waves after all that time away. He had never been so fascinated by these simple sounds, so soft and gentle, so unlike the harsh screams and constant pounding of rain he'd become so used to hearing for so long.

He tilted his head to the side, a big wolfish grin spreading across his face as a couple of the white and gray creatures landed mere feet from where he stood. Relishing the feeling of his new-found freedom, a burst of pure joy flooded through his body. He wagged his tail and pounced, scattering the sea birds into panicked flight and sending gritty sand up after them. Sirius let out a booming bark before bounding after the birds, his paws padding hard against the warm sand. He barked another laugh as he rolled over, feeling every bit the dog as he looked. He chased the birds, savoring the fresh air and the feeling the sun spreading across his wet fur as he dashed across the stretch of white beach. In that moment, he was nothing but a dog, running with the joy of newfound freedom.

He kept at this for at least an hour before his malnourished body caught up to him and Sirius found himself forced to stop and rest.

Sirius sat in the sand for the rest of the day, the salt drying into white specks of crystal on his dark fur, and he watched as the last rays of sun reflected its light on the shining ocean waves before fading into the dull gray of dusk and he set off to find a place to sleep. He wouldn't dare try to go back to his human form, not with the chance of being found unaware. There was sure to be numerous Auror search parties out by now. He should know, being an Auror himself once.

The stars were just coming out, shining pricks of white light in the vast blackness, when he curled up next to a large gray bolder jutting out from the cooling sand as its still lingering warmth from the day transferred to him and soothed his aching muscles.

Sirius was hungry, tired, thirsty, and would probably need to find fresh water soon if he ever wanted to make it to his Godson, but for once he was happy. With a large yawn Sirius Black shut his eyes and buried his head in his paws, drifting off into his first nightmare free sleep in twelve long years.

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He dreamed about a dog, a wolf, and a stag, pouncing and rolling in soft dew covered green grass in a large moon lit forest clearing.

'_I'll never forget you prongs...you'll always be my brother... I promise to find him, I promise...and Harry, I won't let you down, not again.'_

In his dream the stag stopped and looked him in the eyes. Looked at him with _hazel_ eyes. Suddenly, the stag and wolf were gone, replaced by James, and Remus standing off to the side, and Sirius was Sirius once more. It was his family. Each of the men looked just as they had all those years before at age twenty-one. They stood there for what could have been hours or could have been mere seconds, a breeze blowing through the dreamscape and rustling the leaves above. A sense of longing welled up in his chest.

"J-James...Remus..." A lump formed in his throat, making it hard to speak. He couldn't believe it. They were so real, just like he remembered them, and so real! James smiled, just the way he used to, his wide eyes shining in that familiar mischievous way they had under his glasses. He was the one who knew him better than anyone.

"Sirius." He snapped out of his thoughts, seeing his friend's smiling face looking back at him. "Sirius, you never let me or Lily down." Sirius shook his head.

"No James. If it wasn't for me, I mean, if I hadn't convinced you to change your keeper-" Sirius sighed and trailed off looking up into the starry sky high above the trees remembering all the times they snuck out on nights under those very stars. "James, all you and Lily could have had, it was my fault you never got that. Everything that happened to us could have been stopped if it wasn't for me. I should have seen it Prongs, _if I had only seen it!_ They never would have found you or Lily or Harry..." the bitterness in his own voice surprised him, though he didn't know why.

Sirius looked back over at his other best friend who had been standing over on the sideline the entire time, looking out from the shadow of the tree. He just looked sad and there was a kind of look in his tired blue eyes, like an old man watching the world around him out from a much young body, a body that would never feel like his own. Remus Lupin had always looked older than his age, his sandy hair specked with gray as long as Sirius had known him. James wasn't the only one he had hurt...

_"_Remus, I should have known it wasn't you...I'm so sorry." Remus shook his head.

"James is right; it's not your fault..." his lips turned upwards a bit. "Although, it would have been nice if you thought a little bit for once..." Sirius looked between the two.

"No, you don't understand! I might as well have been all the things they say I am. I should have done _something_! I should have-" James held up his hand to stop his friend.

"Padfoot listen to me. There _is nothing_ for us to forgive. I can't stay much longer, but I want you to know something. You are my brother. Maybe not by blood but as far as I'm concerned that's never mattered. Just promise me one thing. Protect him. Find Harry and protect him. Promise me that." Sirius looked at his best friends, mouth agape.

"James...what do you mean? How..." James didn't answer. With one last smile from his two friends turned away and the dream started to fade, first the green forest disappearing into an endless white and then his two friends started fading just as fast. By now they had become transparent, nothing but fading ghosts of memories. Something you could pass your hand through and get nothing but air.

Sirius ran, never seeming to gain any ground but instead seeming to be getting further and further away. "No! No wait! James, Remus, come back, please!" It was no use, because by the time he got there they were gone. Everything was gone, all but a single lingering whisper.

_"Find him, promise me Pad-foot…just promise that you'll find my son..." _He stopped running. They were gone, again, and Sirius was alone. Tears threatened to fall down his face as he stared at the last place he saw his friends, his brothers, his family.

_'I will, Prongs. If it kills me I will...Whatever it takes'_

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Sirius Black woke with a start, looking around frantically in a short moment of panic before remembering where he was. It was still dark, the moon shining high overhead almost full, reminding him of his werewolf friend. He wondered how he had done without his friends to be there for his monthly transformations. He was the reason they had all learned to change after all, to be with him.

_And now he thinks I've become a murderer..._

With a whimper of longing for his family, he rose from beside the bolder and, head down, set off away from the ocean. He knew what he had to do.

_Harry… He needed James and Lily's son to know what really happened that Halloween night when his best friends were murdered._

_Remus… He needed to make it up to an old friend, a friend worthy of the trust he instead placed on another, to let him know the real truth of what came between them._

_Peter… He needed to commit the murder he had been imprisoned for, the murder of the traitor who so uncaringly played his part in the murder of his own friends, the one who had caused all his pain and the pain of so many others._

Then, and only then, could he finally accept what would happened to him, whatever it may be. If he was found, if he was taken back, even if he was given the Dementor's kiss, those three things were the least he could do before he lost it all, because only then would it be worth it.

_'I promise you James, whatever it takes I'll protect him...then I'll find Wormtail, and I'll make him pay...'_

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**A/N: This is going to be the third book from Sirius' POV, filling in the gaps left in The Prisoner of Azkaban. Please tell me how you like it, give suggestions, that kind of stuff. I love long detailed reviews. I would love to hear any suggestions you may have, and remember, feedback is always appreciated and comments are loved! I live off sugar and long detailed comments on why you did (or why you didn't) like things...and don't forget to make any suggestions you might have for me! I can't fix things I don't know about!**


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